


Nightmare

by AlyxStar



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Death Mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 12:44:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8490358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyxStar/pseuds/AlyxStar
Summary: They ask what she sees when the Nightmare plays with them.
She lies.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: As always, I don't own Dragon Age or any of its characters.
> 
> Author's note: mentions of character death (this IS dealing with Nightmare's realm after all) and it is implied that a baby dies. The latter is not in massive detail, but it's a touchy subject in general and I don't want folks accidentally stumbling on it.

They ask what she fears. She should have expected the question, really, with how often the Nightmare demon needles at each of them and spills vague secrets for all to hear. She should have known conversation would turn to her - the Great and Powerful  _Champion of Kirkwall_ \- after their untouchable leader confessed to fear around spiders. Even the little harmless ones spinning their webs for Cole to gather for the healers back at Skyhold. She should have known they would wonder  _what_ , exactly, she set on fire or sent careening off the cliffs the Fade took to shaping so often.  _What do the little terrors look like for you, Hawke?_

Was it a similarly simple, albeit debilitating fear? Was it failure? Madness? Possession or death? Perhaps in a twist of irony she was afraid of birds? Wouldn't that be  _funny_ , if she was terrified of her namesake? Red Templars? Carver being dragged off to join their twisted ranks?

**The Arishok.**

The one she fought. The one who looked at her with something akin to delight in those calculating eyes when she bargained her life in a duel to spare Isabela and Kirkwall, her city, her  _home._ The one who impaled her and lifted her like she weighed no more than a sand sack, who brought her closer to death than any other. Just another handful of minutes without Anders pouring healing magic into her veins and she'd have never witnessed Meredith's final descent into madness, or felt the sting of betrayal when the Chantry exploded ( _"you tried to get me involved!'_ ), or held Fenris when he was  _free._

She fears the Arishok, she tells them. Flinches with every shadow of him in the Fade charging at her, just as the spiders spit and launch at the Inquisitor. A fabrication that makes the Nightmare chuckle, a deep sound that chills her skin and the grip on her father's staff. More tiny terrors run at her and she swallows hard, blinking against the vision of a sunburst scar, the  _sound_ of clanking chains.

* * *

Fenris asks her what troubles her and there is a crease between dark brows. Her magic hums pleasantly when careful fingers settle on her shoulders, halting the unsteady rocking she has fallen into. His frown deepens when he feels how cold she is, something she feels in her bones. He pulls fabric around her, careful of their sleeping daughter in her arms, rubs at her back when he sits beside her and asks again.

She cannot tell him. She cannot  _possibly_ tell him of the horrors in her head and in the Fade, shadowing her every step and ripping at her heart when she closes her eyes. It will only bring him pain. Maybe even guilt, for not staging a rescue sooner. But she cannot wish the words away, or keep the tears from falling, relents with a choked noise when her name breaks in his throat.

* * *

"Oh little Hawke, you cannot lie to  _me._ "

The crib is still. The blanket is tangled. So cold and unmoving. Hawke screams.

Fenris, bound and silent, the vines of lyrium on his back obscured by the blood Danarius swipes his fingers through, the same blood he uses to render her immobile, useless, powerless to do anything but watch as death creeps along the chains.

The scar of a Tranquil livid and fresh on her daughter's forehead. Dead green eyes staring at her, the lack of emotion's flicker a wound all on its own as hands reach for her, red lines marking them in a cruel mimicry of her father's brands.  _What is wrong, Mama?_

_You were there! Why didn't you save her, Fenris?!_ The lyrium, when he shambles to face her, is red. His eyes are turning red, too, and the crystals are already turning his hands to claws much like his gauntlets did. He's laughing at her, his voice a dual-toned thing as he mocks her, grabs her.

_This isn't real, this isn't happening, it's the Nightmare and nothing else!_

She can dimly hear the others fighting over the demon's words out of Fenris' mouth, can almost see them if she focuses, but there's a hand around her throat and she can't breathe and dead green eyes flecked with red stare at her. Accuse her.  _You're nothing but a failure, Hawke._

She uses her magic against him. She made a promise once, not to, but he's killing her and her Tranquil daughter is going to be next and this isn't Fenris. She'd left him behind to keep him safe -! Force magic twists his neck, violently, and the sound of bone snapping chokes her more violently than clawed hands did.  _Why kill him? Did you not love him, Mama?_

"Do you think you can keep them safe from  _me_ , little Hawke?"

* * *

She kills it. She kills Nightmare and its tricks and the things that are not Fenris or her daughter. She kills it all but the damage is done, her fear plucked from the depths of her soul and stamped on her mind's eye so that death and failure and blood are all that she sees until she is shaken from sleep to clutch at him and dampen his shirt with tears instead.

 


End file.
